The phone to my home office – in a rural village some 30 miles north of London – is connected to the outside world by a copper cable. The line swings loosely in the breeze between the guttering of our house and a telephone pole in the street.

我的家庭办公室坐落于伦敦向北约30英里的农村。在那里，与外界的联系就靠一根铜电缆。电缆从我家屋檐下松松地牵到街上的电线杆，在微风中晃晃悠悠。

It was probably installed around the time the house was built, in the mid-1930s. This pre-war technology has lasted 80 years but is about to be put to its toughest test yet.

这还是上世纪30年代中期，建这幢房子时安装的。这二战前的科技已经维持了80年之久，即将迎来最严峻的考验。

“Please can you count up from one to 10?” asks Beth, the polite engineer in NASA’s Audio Control Room in Houston. I do as I am asked – speaking as clearly as I ever have, and quite possibly parodying the clipped pronunciation of a 1950s BBC announcer.

“请您从1数到10好吗。”NASA休斯顿音频控制室里，彬彬有礼的工程师Beth问道。我照做——发音前所未有地清楚，可能刻意模仿五十年代BBC播音员那般清晰地吐词。

A lot is resting on this.

这一步关系重大。

“Thank you,” she says. “I can confirm your phone line is now certified for space.”

“谢谢，”她说，“我确认你的电话线路可以进行太空通话。”

It has taken many months to arrange an interview with astronauts on the International Space Station and, with this final hurdle cleared, I will shortly be talking to people orbiting the Earth.

安排一次对国际空间站宇航员的采访历时好几个月，此刻最后的障碍也清除了，我马上就能和在地球轨道上的宇航员通话了。

On the screen NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko float into view. The two ISS crewmembers are four months into their year-long mission, aimed at investigating the effects of long-duration spaceflight. They look relaxed as they bob up and down between the white walls of the Japanese Kibo module.

屏幕上，NASA宇航员Scott Kelly和俄国宇航员Mikhail Kornienko飘进视野。这两位国际空间站工作人员需要完成为期一年的任务，目标是调查长时间宇宙飞行的影响，目前已完成了四个月。在日本“希望”试验仓里，他们轻飘飘地在白色的墙体间上下移动，看起来很是轻松。

“Please stand by for a voice check from BBC.”

请准备进行BBC声音检测。

“Station, this is Richard Hollingham for BBC, how do you hear me?”

空间站，我是BBC的Richard Hollingham，听得清吗?

“I hear you loud and clear, welcome aboard the International Space Station!”

很清楚，欢迎来到国际空间站!

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